HCA Achievements Over The Last Year - AGM 2021

2 Oct

We work hard for our community and we would like to take this opportunity to talk a little about our achievements this year. Please also read our Chairperson’s AGM Report and see our AGM Meeting information page for more information about what we have been up to.

Below are the highlights of what we feel we have achieved this year.

Our new Website

We hope you love our new website as much as we do. Please have a browse if you haven’t already. Our website boasts the following key features:

Hāwea Directory - Keeping it Local

Our Directory can be browsed using the search box and by category:

We have over 102 listings on our directory already. If you know of a Hāwea business, organisation, facility or service that isn’t already listed, encourage them to get onboard using our online form. We are providing this service for free to our community and local businesses to enable people to reduce their trips into Wānaka and to support our Hāwea businesses.

News & Updates

Our News & Updates page can also be searched using a search box or by category:

We try to follow what’s happening in the Hāwea community, as well as posting our own news and updates, and any relevant council news. If you have local news you would like us to post, please email our comms team to let us know: comms@haweacommunity.nz

Events & Activities Calendar
Our Calendar has the following viewing options: “Pinboard”, “Agenda” and “Monthly” (See top right of Calendar to select your preferred option). Again this feature offers a search box and you can search the calendar by date. We recently upgraded the platform our calendar operates from as the original feed wasn’t working as well as we hoped it would.
Projects & Committees
Our website provides insights about the HCA’s projects and sub-committees. If you’re interested in finding out more about the work we do, please have a browse.
HCA Sub-Committees & Projects
ANZAC COMMITTEE | FORESHORE WORKING ‘THURSDAY’ GROUP | GREENWASTE CENTRE | GUARDIANS OF LAKE HĀWEA | GREBES & DOTTERELS | PLAYGROUND DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE | THREE WATERS
HCA Consultation Projects
FORESHORE MANAGEMENT PLAN COMMITTEE | HĀWEA ROUNDABOUT | LAKE HĀWEA COMMERCIAL ZONE (MONITORING) | QLDC PROPOSED DISTRICT PLAN | TOWNSHIP REZONING
Past HCA Projects
QLDC TEN YEAR PLAN | QLDC SPATIAL PLAN | SPECIAL HOUSING AREA | WĀHI TŪPUNA
Community Surveys
Under “Get Involved” you will find Community Surveys. We post HCA surveys as well as links to (and information about) QLDC Surveys, and other community surveys which we think are relevant to our Hāwea community. Its really important that we get feedback from our community to enable us to be a balanced, fair representation of our community. We are stronger with a collective voice.
Online Membership Sign-up
You can now sign up as a an HCA member or renew your annual membership subscription entirely online. You have the option to pay using your credit / debit card (Note: We can only accept the following debit / credit cards: Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover and Diners, China UnionPay, JCB, Cartes Bancaires, Interac), or you can pay by making a deposit to our bank account. We do ask that you complete our online form before making a subscription payment direct to our bank account. This enables us to ensure we have your membership details correct and allows us to send you a receipt should you want one. Some people may still wish to pay their membership subscription by cash at our AGM. Even if you plan to pay by cash, its a great help if you can first complete the online bank transfer form (but tick that you will pay by cash).
For people unable to complete the online form, we have sent out a form with our AGM flyer which we hope you will receive in your mailbox today or tomorrow. If you complete this form and either drop it in our drop box at the library (or through their afterhours slot), or bring it with you to the AGM it will greatly improve our efficiency on the day.
Monthly Newsletter
We are sending out a monthly email newsletter to our website’s subscribers, please sign up to our mailing list if you haven’t already. You will find an option to subscribe to our mailing list on most pages of our website. You simply need to enter your full name and email address to sign up.

2. Firewood for those in need

This year our team led by John Taylor again split and delivered free firewood to community members in need.

3. Playgrounds Development Project Making Good Progress

1st Survey Completed and Report ready for public to view

We are very excited to have completed the first round of consultation with the community. Please read our Playgrounds AGM Report to understand more about where this project is at. You will find a form at the bottom of the report enabling you to ask questions / give feedback prior to the AGM meeting. The AGM Meeting itself will focus on responding to community feedback and questions rather than repeating what’s in the report itself.

4. The Guardians Highlights

The full Guardians AGM Report can be found here

Enhancing Lake Hāwea’s Riparian Zone, local water quality and Indigenous Biodiversity

The Guardians’ team have been able to report significant pest plant clearing and plantings undertaken at all three target sites (Grandview creek, Urquhart Bay, and Rowley Bay). Progress throughout the year is recorded on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Hāweanz

Grebes

Last breeding season, a pair of Great Crested Grebe nested on an artificial platform at Anzac Peninsula and produced 5 young. This spring, two breeding platforms were launched at Anzac Peninsula, another at the Neck and a further one near Dingle Station. At the time of writing one grebe pair have taken up residence at Anzac Peninsula and one chick has hatched.

Dotterel

Banded dotterels (“Threatened - Nationally Vulnerable”) nest on gravel beaches around Lake Hāwea with several nesting attempts seen last year. The Craig Burn delta is one location where driving on the beach and free-running dogs are threats. Guardians have worked with LINZ to create new signage and publicity to encourage good behaviour that will benefit the birds. A predator control programme is also running and to date has removed over 100 predators.

5. Lake Hāwea Foreshore Working Group / Thursday Group Highlights

The group is continuing to see considerable regeneration of kanuka, broadleaf, pittosporum and coprosma species. A focus is on planting dryland species, especially those that produce berries, supports food for insects, lizards and birds. Indigenous orchids mostly on the banks are very obvious.

The equipment trailer continues to be a great asset with all tools and other equipment in one place which saves time, wear and tear on own vehicles, and it’s easier to audit contents. There are some new very active members of the group- sometimes the numbers reach 12.

An invitation from Hāwea Flat school for their ” listen to the local experts” series was given to the co-ordinator who presented an interactive session on who the group is, what they do, why they do it, what has developed in the reserve, and the other school request –“the values of the wounded lake”! This was handled by what we know, lots we don’t know, what we all love about the lake eg swimming, fishing, just enjoying its solitude and a good plan for future jobs would be to study water science.

On the foreshore we see McCanns skinks, cave wetas, bellbirds, tui, karearea, kereru, grey warblers, and plant regeneration which is an indication of a healthy ecosystem.

A total of 205 locally sourced plants are in the ground.
Twenty seven work days over 40 weeks have been carried out.
Approximately 900 hours have been worked – at the minimum wage this has saved QLDC $18,000.
Read the groups full AGM Report here.

6. Three Waters Achievements

Unfortunately, our Three Waters team is not able to report that we have fixed all our stormwater, freshwater and wastewater issues. However, our team has worked diligently consulting with QLDC and reviewing all intended short and long term plans. Please read their AGM Report to find out more.

7. Greenwaste - still the cheapest around

Hāwea Green Waste charges continue to be the cheapest around, even after these charges increase on 1st November. The fees collected are a major funding source for the HCA to provide for community projects and needs. Link to full Greenwaste AGM Report

8. Supporting other local community needs

HCA organised, funded or provided donations toward the following this year:

Anzac day celebrations
Funding of AED Pads and/or Batteries for the Lake Hāwea Community Centre and Hāwea Flat School is a long term commitment of the HCA
Foreshore Working Group, Grandview/John Creeks and Urquharts Bay Projects, and the Grebes Project, received good funding towards enhancing the lake foreshore and environs
A donation was provided to Hāwea Flat School for their Jump Jam teams
The HCA supported a prize for the Lake Hāwea Community Centre’s Brik Show

Please see our Treasurers Report for more information

8. Ready for our first attempt at a short AGM / Public Meeting

The HCA has repeatedly had feedback that our public meetings and AGM are simply too long. This time round we have got all our reports out to the community in a timely manner (admittedly this is partly due to postponing the date of the meeting itself - but we will blame Covid for that).

By providing the opportunity for the community to read all the relevant reports before the meeting, and enabling the community to ask us questions and give us feedback on those reports before the meeting (either online or by using the form you receive in your letterbox) we hope to focus the meeting on responding to questions and feedback already received. Its very hard for the community to keep questions and feedback concise when they are only hearing the information for the first time, and they have to digest that information and concurrently think of the questions they need to ask. It can also be hard for our team to respond to questions in a concise manner when the questions potentially come from an angle which hasn’t previously been considered.

We hope to cut the meeting from 3 hours to 1.5 hours. To attempt to please everyone we have also allocated a time at the end of the meeting for people with further questions, but some of those questions may have to be taken informally after the end of the meeting if we run out of time.

Thank you for supporting us. We hope to see you either online or in person at our AGM, or to hear from you through one of our feedback options, even if you can’t make it to the meeting.

Please remember, if you have a question, somebody else probably has the same question, and if neither of you get round to asking it, we all miss out.

Links to all AGM Related Reports and Forms

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